I need to read this again if I wobble...

It was a funny day today.  We had a delivery coming from Ikea - the shelf set we bought a few months ago worked so well, we ordered another one to try to bring order to the study.  Therefore I needed to spend most of the day sorting things out of the study so that we can get the shelf unit into it once assembled... and then filled of course.  Consequently the kitchen table is now buried under study stuff & there has been no space anywhere for the boys to 'do anything much' - except of course watch TV, draw pictures, play on the computer, pore over photos, tell each other stories, do a bit of baking, read books, make masks, and play games in the garden (and that's just the bits I noticed)!

It's something I have really appreciated about this 'term' - we've had so many interruptions to the rhythms & patterns we had been in, but in each of those interruptions, every single time I have just been easily able to spot the blessings of unstructured time.  We do usually like a little bit of structure - it works for all of us; but I am now so chilled about days without structure when needed - they are still so rich, just in different ways.

So I thought I'd share some of today's lovely little highlights (in between moving books, boxes etc)...  While the boys were watching 'Absolute Genius' (about Brunel), there was quite a bit of footage of the Clifton suspension bridge, and I was able to tell them about an ancestor of ours on my father's side who tried to kill herself in the late 1800s by jumping off the bridge, but her crinoline skirts opened up like a parachute and she floated harmlessly down to the mudflats and was rescued.  They were happy to hear that she seemed to cheer up afterwards, and lived to be an old lady.  She had a poem written about her and even has her own page on Wikipedia... The boys were enjoying the TV programme as it was, but even more so after they realised we have family links to the bridge, and such a great story too!

I also uncovered our wedding album, & had a lovely few minutes looking through it with the boys.  They loved looking at all the family twenty years ago & working out who everyone was.  There is such strength in knowing you're part of a big, supportive structure like a family - it was lovely to be able to share that with our boys today.

This afternoon I realised it was teatime and I hadn't prepared anything, being preoccupied with the study contents.  So I hastily grabbed some home-made hidden-veg sauce from the freezer and we all made our own pizzas.  We didn't have any mozzarella cheese handy, but we're all perfectly happy with cheddar - and they worked a treat.  Eldest's 'boomerang' pizza turned out particularly large, but he was happy to eat every last crumb, so no problems there! 

 top left to bottom right: Youngest, Middle (heart-shaped), Eldest, Mummy

 Afterwards we enjoyed the chocolate brownies that I had made with Youngest as a distraction from something the older two were doing earlier that was leaving him out.  Whenever one of the boys gets left out of a game I always find baking is a very acceptable consolation!

Oh, and of course we had the camera trap photos to explore.  There was quite a mystery attached to last night's photos.  The camera trap is triggered by motion, via a PIR sensor, so every time anything goes past, it is set to go off & take a quick succession of 3 pictures.  Well last night we know it was working, because first we had several lovely shots of our resident fox - and then there was a gap of an hour before another photo was taken.  Nothing unusual there - there are often gaps between creatures passing by.  However, when we checked the next photo, which seemed to have no visitor in the frame (it happens occasionally that the photo is taken a split second too late), a large number of the peanuts that we had sprinkled on the ground had mysteriously disappeared!  What a puzzle: we were baffled by how something managed to take the peanuts without triggering the camera trap.  A mouse was suggested as the culprit, but we know mice do trigger the sensor as we have a few photos of mice (well, photos of their eyeshine, anyway - they're too tiny to make out otherwise).

 

this is where the peanuts disappeared...

 and a visitor in daylight today... muntjac deer!

in fact not just one, but two!

Finally, as promised, I managed to take photos of Middle's fabulous lapbook that he completed the other day.  We used a combination of the excellent Homeschool share volcanoes lapbook templates (Middle loves the ready-printed ones), and some that we made ourselves. He is rightly proud of his work, as am I, so I'm glad to be able to share it here...

Home Ed, Ancient and Modern

It's been a good day today - we started off with the boys gleefully fiddling on my ipad.  I'm still a little nervous about letting them loose with technology as they outstrip my limited understanding easily, seemingly by instinct (such as Youngest managing to activate some music, that then took me several minutes to work out how to turn off).  I have found the parental locks though, so hopefully they shouldn't be able to spend money or watch/listen to anything inappropriate...

I have to say, it's been totally brilliant as a home ed resource - I have stacks of free apps loaded.  The first one was Eggy Words - a word recognition app from Reading Eggs.  Youngest had only been on it for a couple of minutes when he had mastered the word 'the'.  He has struggled with this one since starting Reading Eggs, because it was one of the few 'sight words' introduced right at the beginning, and he just didn't get it (but refused to repeat any lessons), so has consistently failed to recognise it ever since.  Not once he'd been on the app though - he has no problems now.  Such a little thing - such a big difference!  Other apps we have include Hungry Fish (basic arithmetic), WatchKnowLearn, which has a huge range of educational videos (like the ones you can get on Youtube, but without the risk of them accidentally clicking a link to somethig dodgy), Horrible Histories magazine app, with one free magazine to enjoy - and the only app I have paid for - a year's subscritpion to a magazine called Sea Urchins, about ocean life etc.  They do paper versions I think - but by using it as an app, the boys all get to have a look without one of their brothers having trashed it first.  Eldest was particularly excited when I showed it to him.

Well anyway, I tried to make sure they all got a turn, but of course their turns couldn't possibly be long enough, so I motivated them to share by letting those not "playing" help me to bake some cheese scones and chocolate cinamon crumble cakes... just the kind of distractions I like!

 

After eating our yummy produce for lunch, we went from one extreme to the other - from a morning of modern technology to an afternoon spent engaging with a great chunk of the past at our local museum.  We've somehow never been before (probably because in my mind it's not the first place I think of taking exuberant boys), and I have to say I was pleasantly surprised: yes, the boys were excited to be out somewhere new, especially as their much-loved auntie was with us, so at first they sped around as expected, and I thought we were going to be in and out again within ten minutes, but then Eldest and Middle found a computerised game to design a town, Youngest found some boxes of themed toys for under-fives, and generally that slowed them down enough to notice the more interactive elements around them.  After that they had a lovely time: Eldest found a quiz that could be answered by investigating some of the exhibits, Middle did some coin rubbings and made a mosiac, Youngest tried on lots of different hats and costumes, Eldest tried on a milkmaid's yoke for size (even without pails, it was too heavy after a minute or so), and Middle and Youngest took turns in the stocks.  It's one of those experiences that is tempting to wonder "how much did they learn, fact-wise" - but then again, they interacted with history in a positive way, and found out some interesting trivia that left them wanting to know more - and in my mind, that's what it's all about: introducing them to something and seeing where their interest is sparked.  We were all amazed by the severity of punishment in "the old days", as demonstrated by the exhibit below - and that has already prompted further conversation - so that was one successful (and fun) trip out. 

 

 

 

Looking back over the day I found it really pleasing to think on how the boys interacted just as easily with ancient history as they did with the most modern of technology. Days like this are just wonderful (apart from my tumble dryer dying in the middle of "rainy season", but that's another story... technology is great - when it works).

 

Finally - not in the 'ancient and modern' theme, but I have to share anyway - when we got home the day was rounded off nicely with a visit from a black squirrel - we know they live in Herts, but we hardly ever see any, so we felt very privileged to have this little chap spend about half an hour in our garden, noseying about and gobbling up any spilled bird seed that he found - just gorgeous! And by the way, no, we didn't have an on-the-spot chat about genetics, mutations, melanism etc: we were just enjoying the moment, and it would have been too forced for me to introduce it - but you know what?  The boys will remember the day we watched a black squirrel in the garden (if they don't, I took lots of photos!), and when they do want to chat about genetics etc, I will remind them of him and they'll have a great frame of reference! 

 

 

 Tumble-dryer notwithstanding, that was a lovely, lovely day.

 

Messes and Motivation

We have a set of mini-drawers in our study - drawers full of paper clips, drawing pins, elastic bands, split pins, blutack and foldback clips.  It is a sad confession, but I love these little drawers of bitty bits of stationery: they make me feel organised, and appeal to the little girl in me who always loved things in miniature.  Apparently I'm not the only one fascinated by them either, as on Friday evening I walked into the study to discover that "someone" had tipped out every single drawer (except the blutack one for some reason) onto the floor and into a huge cardboard box!  I wasn't surprised to discover later it was a certain four year old assisted and doubtless encouraged by his seven year old brother.  It's one of those sights that you walk in on and just want to turn around and walk out again.  In fact I'm pretty sure I did just that initially. A bit later I did start trying to pick it all up, then I realised that was entirely the wrong thing to do.  So when the boys woke up the next day we had a "little chat" and I explained that as they had made the mess deliberately, they would sort it all out & put everything back into the little drawers (I swept it all into a big box so they didn't tread on anything by accident).  Initially Youngest was very reluctant (I'm not surprised: it was a total mess), so they've been doing a bit every now and then, and today I sat down with them while they finished it off - miniature order restored!  It actually turned out to be fun, and a great opportunity for them to do some maths (counting into groups of ten, as that was how I motivated them to do a bit at a time) and some sorting into appropriate drawers etc... as well as the very important lesson that if you make a mess, you take responsibility for clearing it up, rather than assuming that "someone else" (Mummy) will!

As a 'thank you' for doing such a good job tidying their mess, we then made some chocolate orange & pecan cookies together.  Pecans are amongst the few nuts that the boys will eat - I think it's because they're not as hard as most other nuts.  Anyway, the cookies were totally scrumptious!

Once that was finished this morning, Youngest got onto Reading Eggs and stayed on for ages... Middle had to wait until the afternoon to have his turn, so he took some time to do some more work on his lapbook (as did Eldest).  He has been getting less and less inclined to do it lately, even though he chose it himself - and I realised it was because he was finding all the writing too arduous.  I do want him to enjoy writing, and enjoy lapbooking - so  I made a suggestion that he liked: he dictated to me what to write, and I typed it up (his typing is currently even slower than his writing), then we printed it and he cut and pasted the printed text onto the mini flapbooks etc.  That definitely put the smile back on his face, so we were all pleased.  Even so, once this lapbook is finished I think I'll hold back on letting him start another one - I want to be sure he's really interested rather than having a 'good idea for a subject' and then rapidly losing motivation.

There were a couple of friends heading to a park meet today, & having had a fairly quiet weekend I was in two minds about whether or not to join them; I thought we all might need a spot of fresh air... but the boys seemed velcroed into their pjyamas, and mindful of Friday's decision to reclaim our time at home, I just let it slide. Instead we had a picnic in front of the TV, letting the boys watch the recorded 'Got to Dance' final... lovely stuff!

Proud Mummy Day

We had a very successful Reading Eggs(press) morning today. Eldest just storms through his allocated time - he tends to go through a couple of books at a time, plus further games/ exercises; Middle had no problems today - yesterday I printed out a little chart with the definitions and examples of the parts of speech that he seemed most likely to come up against to start with (noun, verb, adjective, pronoun).  Given that he has never learned about the parts of speech, he seemed to grasp the concept really quickly - very proud Mummy moment.  Once he'd worked his way through his online book, he couldn't wait to get onto the Quote Quest and other games.  And Youngest - well, he finished another world today!  He is now on world five, and doing brilliantly.  I've already mentioned how much he benefitted from a few months off to assimilate everything he had learned before he got stuck... and today he experienced that again in a smaller way.  He had done a few exercises and reached the test at the end of the 'world' or level.  I was in another room with one of his brothers, and he had a go by himself but gave up, saying it was too hard.  Once I was available about an hour later, I asked him if he would show me the tricky test.  We sat down together and again - having just had an hour away from the computer he was able to focus, and just whizzed through it, getting them all right with ease.  Definite Reading Eggs(press) fans here!

After that, Eldest and Middle both did some more work on their lapbooks.  Again Middle ended up doing some really quite advanced work, writing about and illustrating the different types of muscles.  Bless him, I hadn't realised that some of the downloaded flap templates were harder than others until we started on this one, but as he had started it I just waited to see if he would give up - and he didn't.  The little star!  Eldest has almost finished his too - he had a couple of days off when he ran out of steam, but is almost finished now - he wants it finished by the weekend, so hopefuly we'll have photos to share on Friday.

All of this while Youngest and I baked some Smartie cookies for lunch...

This afternoon  was very lazy.  Hubby has started a new job this week which is further away than the previous one, so he needs to get up earlier in the morning, and so far the boys have been waking up with him, and consequently getting tired earlier.  So this afternoon after all their hard work they just wanted to flop on the sofa, watching TV for a while before disappearing upstairs to build battlefields out of lego and recreate the island of Madagascar in duplo.  It was a bit odd watching about the hottest place on earth (Death Valley) with snow still on the ground outside our window, courtesy of CBBC's Fierce Planet. We had a lovely moment when Eldest and I were excited to spot a songthrush that briefly visited our garden... I love that we're so often at home during the day and can call each other if we see something out of the ordinary, to have a little shared moment together.

Finally it was time for tea: lentil bolognese, cooked almost entirely by Eldest...

Happy sigh - this really has been a proud Mummy Day.  I don't like giving the impression that all of our days are glowing and perfect (they really aren't), but a little bragging comes with the maternal territory, doesn't it?  And hopefully my boys' progress as recorded today might be encouraging to those needing reassurance that HE really can and does work!

Mood Swings, Muffins and Matisse

Eldest is having a growth spurt.  I had noticed some hefty mood swings recently, and his appetite (which is usually tiny) has increased several times over... he eats more than me at the moment!  As with all times when my children exhibit unusual behaviour, I take it as a sign that I need to draw closer to them - and this week I have really enjoyed the chance to spend time together working on his lapbook.  He had quite a few really lovely comments made about his first lapbook (as shared in "We Love Mondays"), and that spurred him on to do an even better book next time, for his "fans"!  Perfect opportunity for Mummy to sit down with him and spend time working on it together.  He still did all the work, but I gave him a few tips, like for every animal pictured, include their name, where they're from and an interesting fact about them.  I don't want to load work onto him so it becomes a chore, but I do feel that he is ready to be stretched a bit, and left to himself he has great ideas, but tends to rush them through a bit - so I've sat with him this week and helped him to focus on getting each page exactly as he wants, not rushing over mistakes.  We've had so much fun going through it together, giggling over mispronounced words and funny facts found while researching, it's been lovely!  I'm so grateful for Home Ed once again - the chance to spend quality time with my boy when he most needs to be reminded that he's loved.

And today it wasn't just Eldest, either - I had some precious one-on-one time with each of my boys, while their siblings were occupied elsewhere (it would be lovely if it were like that every day, but usually we just muddle along, bouncing between rooms, children and activities).  Eldest and I worked on his lapbook as mentioned above, and later I also "helped" Middle with his lapbook.  Whereas Eldest's lapbook is almost entirely done on the computer (with a bit of cutting and sticking) and our working together involves researching, some dictation etc (him to me), Middle's is a lot more practical and hands-on: I've printed off lots of little folded-books, flap-books etc for him from the Homeschool Share templates, some of which already had the information written inside, and we had lovely some snuggles this morning with Middle reading the amazing body facts out to me (he particularly enjoyed boasting that he had more bones and better hearing than me because he's younger).  Then once Youngest had finished his puzzles and time on Reading Eggs (in the same room as Eldest and me, so I could marvel at how much he has progressed while having time off), he and I went to bake some muffins - "just you and me".  He particularly wanted to make some that our lactose-intolerant lodger could share, so we made some carrot muffins.  I thought they were lovely, but Youngest couldn't get past the thought of vegetables inside a cake, and has decided that he doesn't like them.  He loved grating the carrots though - we used the grating attachment on the foodmixer, and he relished pushing the carrots down with the plunger while watching the sharp grater holes do their thing.  He loves gadgets generally, so it was a real winner (apart from not liking the taste of the end result!)

After all the individual work we had some Mummy-led together time where we looked at some art by Matisse, using one of the Smart about Art books that we have - we really like that series.  We talked about how Matisse used just scissors, paper and glue in his later pictures, and how he liked bright colours... and we grabbed our own scissors, glue and brightly coloured paper to have a go for ourselves.  It is harder than it looks, not to use pencils for details or to draw outlines to cut along, but again, we were all pleased with our finished art...
 

"Insect Hill", by Eldest

 



"Underwater Creatures" by Middle

he took extra care over his Sea Hare (top left corner), complete with anatomically correct 'poo-cannon'!

"Zoo" by Youngest

"Jungle Flower" by Mummy

Finally we had a game of Animal Families (like 'Happy Families', but based on animals grouped by classification).  Another lovely day - but for those of you who may be tempted to compare yourselves unfavourably, you'll be relieved to hear that yesterday was nowhere near like this.  Our HE group that we were looking forward to was cancelled at the last minute, and we all felt a bit "flobberly" (it's a family word!) without that focus to the day.  So we basically did very little, which somehow resulted in a lot of mess.  I can't actually remember any of what we did - it was that 'good'!  But I'm including it here for the sake of balance: a little inspiration (hopefully) for those who could use it, and commiserations with anyone else experiencing a non-productive 'flobberly day'.  Whichever applies to you, I hope you all have a lovely weekend!

We love Mondays

I LOVE Mondays!  No more dreading the start of the week: nowadays we really look forward to our Pyjama Mondays (though I do get dressed, as you know).  Mondays are usually such lovely days, filled wth gentle, flexible activities... making sure the boys are keeping up with their jobs (Eldest unloads the dishwasher; Youngest and Middle take it in turns to empty the washing machine into the tumble dryer/ empty the dryer), doing a bit of online Maths/ English, creating art/ baking, playing - and this week Monday also marked the start of new lapbooks for Eldest and Middle - maybe that will continue for however long this lapbook season lasts.  Eldest, bless him, worked really hard and completed his lapbook on Friday evening, because he wanted to show it to family who we were visiting on Saturday - you can see the finished result at the end of this post.  He and I are really proud!

So this morning I asked if the boys would like to make some bread.  They were really enthusiastic (they love both being violent in their kneading (bashing) and being creative in the shapes of their rolls), so that was a lovely start to the day.

We had MathsWhizz while the dough was proving, then they made a start on their new lapbooks while it baked.  Eldest has chosen Desert Animals as his topic.  I had suggested the World Wars as it's one of his favourite subjects, but no - he wanted to do another "animal-y one", so that's what he's doing.  He wanted to repeat the format of his Ocean lapbook, so I've made another mini book out of a few square-cut folders.  Middle is happy with the smaller, more interactive version, which is good as I bought fifty envelope files for the purpose!  His chosen subject is the Human Body - a topic that he appears to find endlessly fascinating.  Today he asked me if he could watch the Rock n Learn DVD that we have on the subject, and I had to keep pausing every time we got to a different system (msucular, skeletal, nervous etc) so he could copy it down!  I wouldn't even have tackled something that involved myself, but he was full of vision, so away he went - it just goes to show, even the most reluctant worker will put effort into something they really enjoy!

 (he hasn't labelled it yet, but hopefully some of the systems are obvious!)

We had our yummy bread rolls for lunch, then decided to do a little art, based on Antony Gormley's "Field for the British Isles".  Eldest really liked it as it reminded him of Calvin (from Calvin & Hobbes)'s army of mini snowmen.  Anyway, we got the playdough out and after making a few little people, soon realised that we didn't have enough.  I didn't have any cream of tartar in the house either, so couldn't make any more.  We took a photo of what we had made so far, then packed it away into tubs until we have replenished our playdough stocks!

More tidying up after that (Youngest was having a "pull everything off the shelves" kind of day) - and an improvised spot of circuit training (the only drawback to pyjama days being those days when they need to let off some steam... so I find ways for them to exercise indoors) and that was our Monday!  Loved it!   And finally, before I log off, here it is (pause for another proud Mummy drumroll): Eldest's first ever lapbook...

Loving Lapbooks

It's such a relief having a sense of direction again!  The house is a complete state (owing to my back not cooperating with my need to tidy), but I'm still enjoying the week because we're having such a positive time!  Even when the car broke down on Tuesday, preventing us from going to our lovely craft club, the boys bounced back from the disappointment much quicker than they would have done otherwise, as they have been enjoying working on their lapbooks!  I know!  Project work actually gripping them with enthusiasm!  Even Middle who usually has an allergic reaction to anything that looks remotely work-like!

For those who don't know, lapbooks - as far as I understand them - are a kind of topic-based scrapbook/ folder with all sorts of flaps, pockets and interactive treasures.  It is much easier to show what they are than describe, so I will show you Middle's shortly (he finished his first one today), but there are lots of different ways to make them too.  Eg Eldest has one on the go that is a lot more of a book than Middle's folder.  There are some helpful ideas on Squidoo, and also on page 10 of this issue of EOS  (Education Ourside School).  Some parents make them for their child to interact with (especially those with preschool children); some get downloadable projects online for their chld to assemble - we love the Homeschool Share  website for great resources; some (especially those who are familiar with the concept) just let their child loose to completely wing it - make their own folder/ notebook/ scrapbook put in whtever they like.  Middle's first lapbook was based on his suggestion on Saturday that he wanted to learn about growing - he drew some pictures and diagrams, and I suggested we could make it into a sort of 'lift-the-flap' book (if I had called it a lapbook at that point he would have not understood what I meant and just refused on principle).  As we have gone along I have called it his lap-book, and he now associates the term with something fun, like making your own lift-the-flap book!  I have done lots of searching online for ideas to suggest, and found lots of great resources on the Enchanted Learning website.  He hasn't gone for all the suggestions, but the finished result I think is really impressive for a first attempt!

So here it is - pause for proud Mummy drum-roll - Middle's first lapbook:

front cover

inside front cover

 

middle 'page' (he's not a fan of colouring, but he was happy to do some with Mummy helping)

 inside back flap

back flap (final page)

"I want to be a dad like my Dad"

I simpy love it!  He s really proud of it as well.  Eldest is still working on his - like I said, it is a lot more of a book than folder - and his has more text and photos, with fewer flaps... but as far as I'm concerned, it's not about copying somebody else's idea of what a good lapbook looks like - it's about finding what inspires your child, and encouraging them in it.  So I will be equally proudly displaying Eldest's lapbook once he has completed it, too.

The older boys haven't just been working on their lapbooks this week - amongst other things they've been keeping up with their online curricula, watching interesting TV Programmes ('Your Paintings' recorded from BBC2 being a particular favourite of Middle's), and doing our own artwork... today's art was inspired by Van Gogh's "The Starry Night".  We looked at our Smart about Art book on Van Gogh, and then I showed the boys the Happy Hooligans link of a Van-Gogh inspired piece of art using paint and melted wax crayons.  We pretty much did as directed on the blog post - but I have to say, the first bit (using our fingers in the paint) was a lot more fun than the second bit which gave my hands cramp while grating crayons.  I think I preferred my painting before I added the crayons too - but the boys were all happy with their finished art, so it was all good!

 Eldest

Mummy

 Middle

Youngest

Once we'd done our art, Eldest and Middle were on Reading Eggspress and Youngest decided that he wanted to go on it too! So after a break of several months, Youngest got back onto Reading Eggs (snuggled up with me, playing it in my laptop). Given that he took a break because it got a bit hard from him, he absolutely whizzed through the pages. Proof yet again (as if we needed it) that times to rest are just as important as times to work.  After he'd had anough for the day he was still looking a bit lost, with his brothers doing their lapbooks.  He says he wants to do one, but every time we sit down to do it he loses interest immediately - so I'm not going to push it.  Anyway, he was enthusiastic about baking chocolate muffins with Mummy, so that's what we did... just in time for lunch, yummy!